Category Archives: breaking the system

we take joyful, impressionable children and put them into school. we take away their free time to be creative, imaginative, exploratory and tell them to behave and obey. we reward them for behaving and obeying and doing as told. they may question this, but we tell them that is how things work. that the rewards come after they are done studying. then we systematically remove any sense of being with competition by telling them they need to be the best. we make them obsess over being the best and then limit their interests to what they can compete for. exams. with the ultimate goal of scoring all those As. what a prize! and by the time they are done with school, if school has succeeded, they enter into the next phase with absolutely no clue as to what truly speaks to their soul as they have had no time to explore.

we then tell them that the key to having a good life is further education. so we further educate them, in the ways we believe lead to having a good income. because good income = good life. simple. now they are educated and working the job they have been craftily built for. now they slave away day to day for their paycheck. that prize! for their paycheck that should bring them happiness. because that was what was promised, wasn’t it? that’s what they all want. so they buy buy buy. buy food, buy clothes, buy gadgets, buy cars, buy holidays. trying to buy that happiness. they are not happy, not really. but they have no time to think of that lack of happiness, because of that job that they must have to pay for the things that they need to be happy. but they are not happy, not really.

meanwhile somewhere out of sight, factories buzz with people working (the people who never got that further education of course), to churn out these stuff that they buy. factories leaking toxic chemicals into their environment. into their water streams. into their soil.

meanwhile somewhere out of sight, forests are being cleared. hundreds of acres. thousands of acres. hundreds of thousands of acres to grow palm trees to feed their consumption of palm oil. palm oil that is in their bread, their chocolate, their biscuits, their instant noodles, their ice cream, their shampoo and soaps, their lipsticks, their detergent.

hundreds of thousands of acres to rare livestock and poultry that they need. their cows and pigs and goats and chickens and ducks and turkeys and geese.

hundreds of thousands of acres to grow corn to feed the cattle they rare. corn to turn into high fructose corn syrup that is in everything, that ever so slowly kills their health. corn to turn into ethanol for biofuel.

meanwhile somewhere out of sight, workers drill deep into the earth to extract petroleum. fuel to fuel their needs. fuel that pollutes. fuel that powers their industries and transportation that emit greenhouse gasses that warm the earth. fuels that they use to make more stuff that they need. fuel to make plastic.

meanwhile somewhere out of sight, plastic fills their landfills and oceans. plastic killing their wildlife. their birds, their seals, their turtles, their fish, their whales. plastic that goes from their garbage to their plates.

but they are too busy to care. too busy working to fund the lifestyle they have become accustomed to. to pay for the phone they must own and fancy food they must eat and the car they must drive and the house they must live in. to pay for all the things they own, but not really. to pay off debt.

they want to care, but possess no knowledge or skills to be able to care for. they want to care, but have no time to care for. they want to care, but how can they?

their water is being poisoned. their air polluted. their food mutated. their environment destroyed. their minds distracted. their souls empty.

they are stuck. paralyzed.

this is how slavery works.

we take children with all the magic and potential their lives contain and squash it. we torture them with pointless competition and endless repetition. we tell them it is the purpose and goal. we tell them it is success, while the world literally crumbles around them. they care, but we tell them it’s not their job to.

it is not their job to care for the environment. not their job to stop the pollution. not their job to grow the food they eat. not their job to think of what goes into their food. not their job to fix their things that break. not their job to think of where their trash goes. not their job to keep the planet clean. not their job to save the trees and animals.

we tell them that someone else will do it. somewhere out of sight.

their job, is to make money. because money will solve all their problems. money will buy their happiness.

and then they end up too busy working to fill the void that is caused by being too busy working. and then they die. but what does it matter? when were they ever alive anyways? when they were studying for their As? when they were getting a higher education? when they were working so hard to get that job they were meant to have and then working so hard to keep it?

is it just me? or do people seem to get more and more defeated by life as we all get older? my generation of people are now in their 20s, and finally understanding what it’s like to become part of the adult world. i have noticed so many people expressing their dissatisfaction with a dead end job, or one they don’t even enjoy doing, complaining about stress – but that’s all they do. they don’t seem to want to get out of those situations. they just put up with it, and be unsatisfied.

where was it said that we have to just get with the program and do what we are expected/told to do, to survive? did i not get a memo on that? is it naive to believe that we can do what we are passionate about in life, and still live?

it must come down to money. it always does. everyone thinking that we need money to be happy, to buy things, to go places, to enjoy life – which makes jobs our lifelines. our only means to survive, at such a young age.

no i don’t think that money has no importance in this world. i wish it didn’t, but we can’t change the situation we were born into, and it does. but i find it funny when some friends express their dissatisfaction and obvious desire to be free, then tell me that i’m lucky or they wish they could just have it easy like me. because i haven’t worked for anyone but myself in 4 years, work stress is non-existent to me but yet i seem to be able to buy things and go places.

but i don’t exactly buy things. not anything i don’t absolutely need. i survive because i live extremely thriftily. you know that new phone or cool gadget that just came out? i don’t. how about the latest brands or trends in fashion? i don’t. you’d have to tell me which make up or beauty care products are any good too, coz i definitely don’t know that either. and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things i don’t keep up with anymore.

i used to care so much. too much. and many years of whatever hard earned income i had went into a lifestyle that brought me no good or benefit. i spent way too much on going out, meeting people, partying, buying alcoholic beverages, having fancy meals, going on shopping sprees, holidays. but the satisfaction i got from any of that hardly lasted at all. they were temporary fixes, but never actually fixed anything. it was a lifestyle that had to be maintained at all costs, or the fun i was having would just stop. i wouldn’t be able to afford anything, and then what would i do? how would i enjoy myself? how would i be happy?

that is why i set myself free. i am lucky. lucky to have had all my fun at a very young age and learn my lesson right after, with more than enough time to make a 180 turn for the better, before my life truly began. i also earned my right to do what i enjoy doing and not be stressed out. my partner and i budget our expenses and save some for rainy days, not spending more than we should on anything that we don’t actually need while taking risks with business opportunities to find something we really love doing that will bring in a long term income so we can plan towards buying a land and being self sustainable to give our children (and parents in their old age) a healthy life closer to nature where money and stress isn’t everything anymore.

you can call me naive, but i know there is much more to life than just working a job to make a “living”. working days and hours that leave me with not enough time to spend with people i love, travel or work on skills and hobbies. money to go on pointless shopping sprees to reward myself and make up for the dissatisfaction. “stability” that enables me to get a loan to buy a house that i barely spend time in, and a car to get me to the wretched job that would be responsible of keeping me from truly living in the first place.

it’s all a big loop to me. where is the end? i see people of our elder generations – having lived their lives the way they were expected to – worrying about retirement and where they go after. worrying because whatever money they’ve made is still not enough to take care of everyone’s evergrowing needs. what’s really scary though, is that i see them unhappy. what good is monetary income and material wealth when our elder generations, 20 – 30 – 40 years ahead of us have in many ways achieved all of that, and aren’t happy yet.

we think we put up with work and all it’s torture in the now, so we can save enough – and then live the lives we wanna live. but if we don’t really think about the decisions we’re making, one thing just leads to another and before we know it, we are 70, with the best years of our health and lives behind us – then only realising there were so many things we wish we did different. it’s the someday syndrome. someday i will quit my job. someday i will spend more time with my family. someday i will travel with my friends. someday this, someday that. and then, that someday never happens.

so to anyone with passion that i happen to cross paths with who is stuck in a situation that makes them unhappy, i try to say the same one thing. chase that passion now. follow your rainbow. even if it’s risky and isn’t what others expect of you – just do it. because we should, before more time is wasted doing what we don’t want to do. whatever age we are at now, we don’t gain any time by waiting a little longer. we shouldn’t let money be our sole guide in the now, especially if we are young! while we have the space to find what we want to do, we shouldn’t tie ourselves down to loans and job commitments. we owe it to ourselves to discover what makes us feel fulfilled, and from there – work on making a living from it. you can use your income to shop and travel all you want now, but if the reality that you go back to is something that’s not satisfactory, no amount of escapism is going to change that.

free yourself first. it takes effort and sacrifices, but the freedom is certainly well worth the trouble.

i have been trying to find a good old folks / nursing home for my grandparents who i know aren’t too far from needing a place to go where they can be looked after and kept entertained in their golden years. i am appalled at my findings so far as i can say with certainty, 9 out of 10 places are below par and the ones that aren’t will most definitely cost a bomb.

it makes me sad to think of the condition of living in this country, and how old folks for the most part, are on the loosing end of things. reality seems to be – if you don’t have enough money to hire a live in maid or check yourself into a pricey place, you have no choice but to live out the rest of your life in conditions that will suffocate you and take the joy out of what should be a very peaceful journey towards your final departure.

i want even more now to invest on a land, a few acres if possible, build my family a home and provide space for my children to run around freely and my parents to retire and grow old. i believe tribes have it right, living life together, sharing all responsibilities and burdens. more people to help raise the young and care for the old, together.

but that’s not society anymore, is it?

everyone trying so hard to make a living for themselves, not thinking about the rest of the world. i get it though. if you don’t belong to the minority of people who have found a way to make a living out of something they really love, life is hard. life is fucking hard. if you don’t work, you don’t make money and you are doomed to poverty – something i wouldn’t curse on my worst of enemies (not that i have any). if you work, you spend all your time at your job making as much money as you can – and hate your life a little when you find you barely have time for yourself (let alone anyone else), then waste said money on unnecessary expenses which are justified by of all the hard work you do only to find yourself truly still not satisfied.

everyone’s so caught up struggling for a “better” life. what counts as better anyways?

i want to dream big. i want to aim high. i have been shown that there really is so much more we can achieve beyond the illusion of money. someday i will provide a better life for those around me. there will be land for people to roam happily. plants to tend to. pets to take care of. activities to get involved with.

when my partner first shared his ultimate desire to live communally, it freaked me out, and made me think he was a little crazy. the thought of having to share my space with other people was intrusive. intrusive on this bubble that i call my space. intrusive on my past dreams and goals (which clearly didn’t come from a space of awareness). intrusive on the walls society helped lay foundation and bricks to. but i am no longer scared.

next month, i move into a new house *YAY* a place i will call home for the next phase of my life – before we get our land. and this will be a shared space. not in a housemate-everyone has their own room kinda way. but as two families living under one roof, as one. practice for the future – where i promise (myself) to live unselfishly so others may benefit from the hard work we put in together and the young, middle aged and/or old will no longer have to worry as much about caring for themselves. that is the pot of gold waiting for me at the end of this rainbow.

every time someone gives me attitude and tells me that marijuana is a drug and therefore isn’t good or “right”, i feel like reaching over and strangling them out of frustration. but there is no point in trying to educate people who choose to remain ignorant, so I say the bare minimum and pretend to not be offended by their lack of knowledge or common sense.

attached here is some reading material for those of you who are doubtful about this “drug”.
– still believe nature got it wrong? top 10 health benefits of marijuana
“No independent study has ever linked marijuana to psychosocial problems. Cannabis is one of the most powerful healing plants on the planet. Dozens of studies have made pseudoscientific attempts to indicate that young people who use cannabis tend to experience psychological, social problems and mental decline. However, there is no evidence that marijuana use is directly linked with such problems”

– marijuana facts
“The conception of marijuana as a potentially fatal, highly addictive narcotic, on which much of last century’s anti-weed propaganda was built, has been disproved by science, which has shown that it’s almost literally impossible for humans to consume enough THC to overdose. (In fact, dying from drinking too much water would be far easier.) ”

– 10 facts about marijuana
“There is no compelling evidence that marijuana contributes substantially to traffic accidents and fatalities. In driving studies, marijuana produces little or no car-handling impairment – consistently less than produced by low to moderate doses of alcohol and many legal medications. In contrast to alcohol, which tends to increase risky driving practices, marijuana tends to make subjects more cautious. ”

– marijuana vs cigarettes
“After 20 years of testing, researchers found some buzzworthy results: regular marijuana smokers (defined by up to a joint a day for seven years) had no discernible impairment in lung activity from non-smokers. In fact, researchers were surprised to find marijuana smokers performed slightly better than both smokers and non-smokers on the lung performance test. Why? The most likely explanation seems to be that the act of inhaling marijuana—holding each puff in for as long as possible—is a lot like a pulmonary function test, giving marijuana smokers an edge over their cigarette smoking counterparts.”

if you choose to read it, good on you for at least wanting to expose yourself to the truth. there’s a lot you may not know about marijuana. here’s some history on why it became an illegal substance
– why marijuana became illegal
“Marijuana has been around since the dawn of recorded history. The first known use of cannabis dates to 7,000 B.C. Marijuana was used as a medicinal herb by the ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans for stomach ailments, cramps, and pain. Marijuana was first used in the U.S. for medical purposes in the 1800’s, however, the cannabis (hemp) plant fiber had been in use for thousands of years. Hemp fiber was the main ingredient of the first woven fabric. Hemp was used to make rope, twine, cloth, and paper among other things.”

ignorance annoys me. are we not from the age of information where knowledge is at the tip of our fingers? with all the proof and studies out there, should we not know to question authority when it is being selfish or downright stupid? have we not evolved enough to understand that
– our government does not have our best interest at heart
– our government lies
– there’s a ton of truth being concealed from the general public because someone stands to gain selfishly from it
– we should not just blindly believe what the law tells us

i think it’s wrong that we are being lied to about marijuana. it is frustrating when marijuana is categorized as a drug because it is truly almost harmless. there are much harder drugs in fact, even prescription medicines have more damaging effects if we’re being honest. i think it’s time to come clean and tell the truth. if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. best decisions are made when the real facts are presented. if you are worried, don’t just tell someone they’re doing something wrong when you don’t even understand what you are talking about. education on the real benefits and effects of this NATURAL PLANT is key in changing the way things are. this is an opportunity for everyone to have a better understanding of reality. if you can’t handle reality, well, then i guess you shouldn’t be on my page ;)

in a world that feeds on consumerism, nothing stands to threaten the system as effectively as the power we have as consumers, customers, shoppers – someone’s target audience.

why we don’t choose to fully utilize our ability to change the very world we see, i can only guess at. what i do know though is that as a consumer myself, my decisions play a part in this world being what it is now, and becoming what it will be in the future. i have come to see over time that it is not only the big decisions that we make, but also the mundane everyday things we don’t pay attention to that are shaping our society.

imagine if we decided to change our habits. to question who our money is going to, where it is being spent and how those decisions affect humanity on a larger scale. wouldn’t we be so much more careful in spending our hard earned cash? money that makes the world go round. money that people can’t live without. money that time and time again falls into the wrong hands and results in decisions being made for us, behind our backs, without our consent – effectively lowering the quality of our lifestyles.

realising my power, i have chosen to withdraw my unintentional support towards money hungry corporations who care about nothing else but the profit in their pockets at the end of the day. that list includes but is not limited to :-

with obesity being an epidemic and health being a main concern, what better way than to stop feeding money to fast food chains who compete to provide lower, more affordable unhealthy meals to the general public? is their food tasty? hell yes. i myself got fat (20 kilos heavier than i am now) on fast food because when you don’t think about what you’re eating, it’s extremely irresistible. there are absolutely no health benefits from such meals though, and wouldn’t it be much better for the world if those places went out of business and made way for healthier-but-still-yummy alternatives? subway deserves an “honorable” mention here because all throughout my adult years, i thought subway was that healthier alternative. but do you know that if you add on cheese and sauce (which is free, so why would we not), it ends up having more calories and salt than a big mac?

because first of all, THEY ALL TEST THEIR PRODUCTS ON ANIMALS.
secondly, i believe that the advertising industry has over the years led many astray and created a culture in which we are constantly chasing perfection. unnecessary perfection. as a matter of fact, perfection that doesn’t even exist to begin with. and in that search for unobtainable perfection, we expose ourselves to all kinds of chemicals and contaminants which at best, create an illusion of improvement. i recently found out that shampoo washing over my face was actually damaging my skin and the soap i took for granted was getting me clean has also been drying out my skin and fast-forwarding its aging. the alternative here? natural products. from the earth. so much healthier, and cheaper!

monsanto, syngenta, dow agrosciences, basf, bayer, dupont – producers of genetically engineered seeds and their chemical herbicide and insecticide counterparts. environmentally, monsanto crops are engineered to be immune to herbicide so that farmers can destroy weeds without killing their crops, but the process has spawned roundup resistant weeds, forcing farmers to apply bigger doses of the chemical or use even more toxic methods to get rid of the superweeds – poisoning our insects, birds, aquatic life, atmosphere and everything else along the way. monsanto already has an office in damansara. food companies under monsanto (that are not legally required to let you know that their products contain GMO ) – cadburry, campbells, coca cola, famous amos, heinz, hunts, knorr, kellogs, craft/phillip morris, pepsi, pillsbury, pringles, quaker, shweppes.

that seems like a very long list, and in all honesty – it is. i understand how completely reasonable it is for any individual to feel like at least once in a while, they should get to treat themselves to tempting fast food, buy and use products and be an average, normal person. there are days where i’d like to not care about anything and revert back to my old habits too. but i have made a personal choice to be a tad bit extreme and learn to live without such junk because i believe my little purchases count for more than i’d like them to.

as consumers, we are often unaware of our purchasing power or the effect we have on each other – on a global scale. however, consumers no longer need to live in ignorance. there is a whole world of information that has been made available to us so we can (when we choose to) be aware of the truth. my choices may seem educated to some and completely crazy to others. to me, it is not a change i am making only for the betterment of myself and my life, it is a way in which i feel i am capable of giving back to earth and humanity.

there are many ways, many people can make a difference. we don’t all have to do the same thing, but we do have to individually be aware and try our goddamned best. don’t get too comfortable with the world you think you know today. don’t settle for the supposed reality we are being fed. the odds have not been so heavily stacked against good since david took on goliath but as we begin to realise our power together – us many little people who feel like nobodies will see that we have always been strong enough to knock those big guys off their greedy, selfish asses ;)